


now my neck is open wide, begging for a fist around it

by owlvsdove



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Multi, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6055948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The portal to the planet, to Jemma’s former prison, spat out four beings. Three of them are human. One of them isn’t. </p>
<p>Jemma has to figure out which one’s which.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now my neck is open wide, begging for a fist around it

 

The universe is cruel.

Jemma didn’t used to imbue the universe with any special intention or purpose – it is magnificent on its own, but it doesn’t think. Not like she does. But here she is, standing in the Vault in front of these three, staring an impossible task in the face.

The universe is very cruel.

 

 

The four of them huddle near the bottom of the staircase. Daisy and May are there for Jemma’s protection. Coulson is giving orders, a somewhat crazed look in his eye, because this is unprecedented. The portal to the planet, to Jemma’s former prison, spat out four beings. Three of them are human. One of them isn’t.

Jemma has to figure out which one’s which.

“And you’re certain you don’t have a clue as to who it might be?” Daisy asks in a harsh whisper, one of her hands clutching her sidearm already.

Coulson shakes his head. “That thing came after us. We tried to fight it, but—”

“It’s too strong,” Jemma murmurs.

Coulson nods once in understanding. “I felt it dragging us through the sand, and when I woke up we were on the other side.”

“But it had disappeared,” May says.

“Which means it might’ve taken the form of one of them,” Coulson finishes.

Fitz is in one cell. Will is in another. And Ward is in the third. Jemma’s men, in one form or another.

Three sets of eyes are on them, right now. Fitz is pacing, anxious to be let out and reunited with them. With her. Will is sat on the floor of his cage, head between his knees, breathing hard. Fourteen years off-planet mean he’s going through a rough adjustment period. They hadn’t let Jemma anywhere near him when he needed treatment, letting one of the other medical personnel give him oxygen, monitor his heart rate as Daisy held her back. Ward is stock-still, sitting somewhat ironically in his former cage, watching with little more than a mild resignation. He’d been—all three of them had been—so out of it when they returned that he’d been thrown into his cell without a fight.

She has to evaluate them. Separate true from false.

“You know what you have to do, Jemma,” Coulson prompts her. The room had been silent for a while, and she had been lost in watching them.

“What if I can’t tell?” Jemma whispers.

“If any of them make even the slightest move towards you, Daisy will blow them back and I will pull you out of there,” May says, hard edges in her voice.

Jemma knows this. Jemma knows. But that isn’t exactly what she asked.

“You’re our best shot,” Coulson says, lamely. “Good luck.” Then he excuses himself, going to watch the feed from his office after he checks on Bobbi and Lance running things upstairs.

 

 

The three women move to the center panel in the room, surveying.

“Who do you want to do first?” Daisy asks.

What a fucking choice.

Part of her thinks she should go straight to Will, check his vitals for herself. Part of her thinks she should get Ward out of the way, as painful as it might be.

She walks to Fitz’s cell first. Daisy presses a button on the panel, drops the wall, and Jemma walks inside. The two women hover in her periphery, but she focuses on Fitz’s face.

“Are you okay?” Jemma asks, because that's the first thing she can think to say.

Fitz nods. “I brought him back,” he says.

For a moment, she’s not sure what he means. “Will,” she says.

He nods again.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“I hope he’s not, you know—”

Fitz is trying so hard to be a good man. She appreciates that. She wonders if It, if Death itself, could replicate his earnestness. She doesn’t think so.

In a spot of weakness, she surges forward, pulls him close. His arms wrap around her desperately. He smells the same. He feels the same. He has to be the same. He has to be.

“Tell me what happened,” she says as she pulls away.

He repeats the entire story: Ward marching him around the desert, finding Will, running into Coulson, and then It showing up, fighting them, passing out—

“You’re okay though, right? You’re not injured?” she stops him.

“I’m fine, I promise.”

“Somebody checked you over?”

“Yes, Jemma. Just scrapes and bruises.”

She’s not sure what to say now. She doesn’t want to move on from him but she doesn’t know how to ask him if he’s a monster. She looks into his eyes and he feels like Fitz. But she’s been so, so wrong before.

She gives Daisy the signal to let her out, and May stands guard. Jemma shivers to think about how May must be feeling, having to face the possibility that someone on her team might have been replaced.

 

 

She goes to Will next – she can’t help it. She remembers what it felt like to come back, to feel blinded, distracted, overwhelmed, broken. And he’d been gone so long… she needs to make sure he’s okay for herself.

And she misses him so much she aches.

She can feel Daisy and May’s eyes even more focused on her this time. Will is a complete stranger to them.

But Jemma might be the only person in the universe who knows him anymore.

He can barely lift his head to look at her, he’s so sick; but she scrambles over to him, crouching down towards him on the floor.

“Will?”

“Hey,” he rasps.

She can’t help it. She smiles in relief. Jemma crawls even closer, wraps her trembling arms around his shoulders and pulls him to lean on her. Will sighs in relief.

“I told you I’d get you home,” she mumbles into his hair.

He snorts. “I’d wondered how long it’d take you to say _I told you so_.”

“You know me.”

“You can’t help yourself,” he breathes.

Poor thing is sweating, clammy to the touch. Part of her, a terrified part, wonders if this is how the monster would feel, also having to adjust to Earth’s atmosphere. If the monster is hiding in Will’s symptoms. In her arms.

She squeezes him closer.

“Are you injured?” she murmurs.

“It tore up my leg, but it’s not that bad. Other than that I’m just bruised up.”

“Just bruised up?” she asks. “You can barely lift your head, you’re sweating, and you can hardly see straight.”

“I’m trying to be tough,” he mumbles.

A laugh bursts out of her, and it surprises the room.

She checks over his leg – blood has crusted around a deep gash, and it’s probably in danger of infection, but he’ll be okay for a little longer until she can get her kit.

“I need you to look at me, now,” she says softly. She has to judge by the light in his eyes.

“You say that like it’s a chore.” Slowly he lifts his head, tries so hard not to squint at the harsh light above him.

He takes a big grounding breath and stares her down.

“Will—”

“We have to kill it, Jemma.” The words burst out of him like he can’t help it anymore. “We can't let it get to the people on Earth. They don’t deserve the hell it brings.”

“SHIELD will contain it, Will, I promise.”

“If it’s me,” he starts. Her throat constricts as she shakes her head. “If it’s me, you can’t hesitate. Jemma, promise me.”

Her hand goes to his cheek. “I promise,” she whispers. And then her lips are against his in a mess of tears. It’s not him. It’s _not_ him.

“I didn’t send my best man across the universe to get you just for you to become a monster,” she whimpers.

“It’s okay.” He kisses her cheek. “It’s okay.” He kisses her forehead.

She struggles to open her eyes for a moment, and then she forces herself to move away. “I’ll come back in a while and clean up your leg.”

“Be careful, Jemma. Please.”

She nods. She retreats.

 

 

May has the decency to look away. Daisy lays a hand on her shoulder while Jemma focuses on wiping her tears away. She doesn’t need Ward to see her like this.

“Ready?” May asks after a moment.

“You saved the best for last,” Daisy mutters.

Jemma just nods.

Ward regards her placidly as she enters, seemingly unconcerned.

Truthfully, she’s not sure how to approach this.

He seems to sense that, because he speaks first. “You know, it would be pretty good revenge to tell everyone that it’s me.”

He’s not wrong. She did just spend the last couple of days being tortured by his hand.

“May would empty her mag into my heart, and when the real monster shows up you can chalk it up to human error.”

“I suppose that’s an option,” she says.

He smiles. He actually smiles.

“You’d finally get your chance to kill me,” he points out.

“Why are you being helpful?” she quips.

He shrugs. “Being back in this cell, it’s just like old times. Might as well make an attempt on my own life.”

He says it glibly, like it’s a joke, but all at once the weight of SHIELD’s cruelty knocks the air out of her chest.

“Don’t look so guilty,” Ward chastises. “You were the one who patched me up. I know it was you.”

“It’s my job,” she says automatically.

“It’s also the job of at least a dozen other people on this base. It didn’t have to be you.”

She says nothing to that.

“But you felt responsible.”

She nods weakly.

“That’s how you and I are alike.”

She closes her eyes for a brief moment. “No,” she bites. “That’s how your _cover_ and I were alike. I don’t know who you are.”

He doesn’t look like he concedes that point, but he moves on from it.

“But you know I’m not Maveth.”

“Do I?” she challenges.

“You were on that planet for a lot longer that I was,” Ward says. “But as soon as I saw that thing, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. You’ve been trying to look into our eyes, to try and see the change. But you’d be able to feel it, as soon as you walked into the cell.”

He’s not wrong.

In an instant she hates him, hates how well he understands her, hates how he can see everything she’s thinking. The fury is white hot, and it burns through her like a flash fire. Already over before it’s really begun.

Maybe he’s manipulating her. Maybe he’s telling the truth for the first time since she met him. Either way, it’s saving his ass.

“Are you injured?” she asks, resigned.

“No,” he says quietly. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Jemma looks away. “I’ll come back down and check in when—”

“Don’t make any promises, okay?” he says. It feels like quite a kindness. “Just get the job done, Simmons.”

She nods once in understanding.

And she turns her back on him, signaling Daisy, knowing he will not take advantage of her.

 

 

In the coolness of the open chamber of the Vault, Jemma starts to panic.

“So?” Daisy prompts.

“I don’t know.”

It’s the three most shameful words she could possibly say. “I don’t know,” she repeats, even more despondent. “I couldn’t see a change in any of them.”

The tears start to wick again, and her shaking hand goes to her forehead, trying to rub sense into her brain.

“It’s okay, Jemma,” May says. “We’ll figure out a way to—”

The large _bang_ of the basement door slamming open startles Jemma into trembling, has May and Daisy with their guns out.

“It’s Coulson!” Bobbi calls, voice defined by hardness and urgency. “He’s—”

Jemma doesn’t hear anything after that. She knows exactly what Bobbi’s going to say. She can feel it in her bones.

Dimly, Jemma registers the horror, the shock, the sorrow on her friends’ faces. In the background, she can hear Mack’s voice at the top of the stairs, growling, desperate for backup. Her body’s already moving, though. Moving to the center of the room where the console lives, pressing buttons until all three of the cells open for her.

“Simmons, what are you doing?” Daisy growls in horror.

But Jemma’s busy, hauling Ward to his feet and pressing him to the wall, elbow pressing painfully into his chest.

She knows, _God, she knows,_ that he could get the upper hand in one second flat. But he’s choosing not to. That’s why she can trust him on this one.

“You feel _responsible_?” she howls, ribs on fire, cut on her cheek stinging, voice rasping, pure with intent. “You’re feel responsible like _I_ do? Then go out there and _stop that thing_ before it hurts someone else.”

There’s a long moment where he lets her chest heave with rage before he nods once, locking into that responsibility.

Ward surges out of his cell and up the stairs.

“You can’t trust him!” Daisy shouts. “For all we know he could—”

“Then follow him!” Jemma snarls.

Fitz has already made his way out of his cage, but Will hasn’t moved, too weak to stand; so she grabs Fitz’s arm. “Protect him.”

“Where are you going?” he asks. He already knows the answer, and asking the question doesn’t make her rethink her choice like he always hopes it might.

“That thing is here because of me. Because of _us_.”

She doesn’t wait for a reply. May hands her an extra gun, and the three women go charging upstairs into the fight.

 

 

When they find the commotion, Grant has a snarling Maveth pinned against the wall. The monster uses Coulson’s voice to try and reason with him, but Ward is deaf to it, waiting with a sense of peace. Bobbi, Mack, and Lance point their guns with some measure of confusion, not sure if they should be threatened by the image of Coulson, the image of Ward, or both.

Daisy and May fall into formation with the rest of them, but Jemma weaves her way to the two strugglers.

“Look who it is,” Maveth speaks, hissing and taunting like It can still win. “One of my little survivors.”

Jemma presses her gun to the body’s gut. “You’re my prisoner now.” And she empties four ICER rounds into the monster.

 


End file.
